Bullet Flight 1.0.0 – the US$15 iPhone app for snipers

January 21, 2009 The rapid advancement of technology on all fronts has yielded some fascinating mash-ups to make life easier for small groups of people with specific needs and the US$15 KAC Bullet Flight 1.0.0 iPhone app and rifle iPhone mount are a case in point – they are just perfect for the sniper/hunter.

Bullet Flight turns the iPhone into a handy, touch screen, ballistics computer using the iPhone’s accelerometer to calculate angles, providing highly detailed, very quick solutions. The KAC mounting attaches an off-the-shelf Otterbox ruggedising case. You can also download different weapon and ammunition profiles (it comes with three) and even subscribe to highly detailed weather and forecast information, not to mention listen to music whilst you await your quarry.

The snipe is a wading bird renowned for being the hardest of all birds to hunt due to being difficult to locate, impossible to approach without flushing, or to hit once in the air due to its erratic flight. In the days of market hunting, those who brought snipes to market were regarded as the best of the best and earned the term snipers. The verb snipe originated in the 1770s among soldiers in British India applying similar skills in wartime with a human quarry.

A sniper occasionally takes the one, well-aimed shot that, if done properly, will save lives and turn the course of battle. One of the many skills of a modern days sniper is mathematics – to measure or estimate the range, cross winds, and calculate the allowances needed for one shot to hit its target after travelling up to 2000 yards.

The longest confirmed sniper kill of the Gulf War was made by a Barrett Model 82A1 sniper rifle at a range of 1,800 meters) and the all-time record kill is accredited to a Canadian Special Forces sniper in Afghanistan at 2430 meters using a McMillan Bros Tac-50. Of course, there could be even longer confirmed kills that have not become public knowledge as this type of feat rarely makes the newspapers - the Canadian record was only disclosed after word-of-mouth about the prodigeous accomplishment reached a newspaper reporter.

Mike grew up thinking he would become a mathematician, accidentally started motorcycle racing, got a job writing road tests for a motorcycle magazine while at university, and became a writer. As a travelling photojournalist during his early career, his work was published in a dozen languages across 20+ countries. He went on to edit or manage over 50 print publications, with target audiences ranging from pensioners to plumbers, many different sports, many car and motorcycle magazines, with many more in the fields of communication - narrow subject magazines on topics such as advertising, marketing, visual communications, design, presentation and direct marketing. Then came the internet and Mike managed internet projects for Australia's largest multimedia company, Telstra.com.au (Australia's largest Telco), Seek.com.au (Australia's largest employment site), top100.com.au, hitwise.com, and a dozen other internet start-ups before founding Gizmag in 2002. Now he writes and thinks.